The ITA system for teaching reading in the 1960s and 70s

[ZiggyPlaysGuitarrr]

I found this article really interesting. It seems that this method of teaching was introduced completely inconsistently and then quietly dropped when it became apparent that it didn't work. Was anyone taught by this method? Has it affected you in the long-term?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/06/1960s-schools-experiment-created-new-alphabet-thousands-children-unable-to-spell

Yeah I started out on ITA and our local library had loads of ITA books.

I can’t say it’s had much impact on me. I’m a big reader and always have been. I don’t remember noticing anything when we switched to ‘normal’ reading. It’s just how it was for us. Don’t think my parents were overjoyed.

went to school in the 80s, but we used to have a lot of 60s children's magazines kicking about the house which had been my Dad's, one was called Treasure, and I am sure it had a story in it every issue with this kind of writing down one side and normal spelling on the other. I found it intriguing!

I remember switching from ITA to 'normal' books and that several kids in the class suddenly needed a lot of extra help. My mum disapproved of ITA and taught me to read outside school.

I think it was a mid-century international craze. My country tried to respell the borrowed French words phonetically and Germany tried to replace ß.

The ITA system was utterly bonkers.

It was intended to help those who found learning to read hard, but of course they also found the transition to the normal alphabet hard, so nothing was gained at all! Quite quite mad!

Those with no reading problems sailed through it all - but they would have learned to read just fine anyway!

A truly pointless exercise!

I started school in 1965 as a 'rising 5', i.e. I went to school for the summer term before I was 5. I had already learnt the alphabet and could spell a few words before that, but we were taught ITA.

It really confused me, my mum & dad had no idea what it was and couldn’t help, and, more importantly, I had to sit on my left hand and use my right as the former was the "devil's hand"

It was even more confusing when in year 2 we went back to 'proper' English and it was treated like the previous 18 months hadn't existed.

I really struggled with letter - order, my writing was labelled 'illegible' and had to use squared paper to help me write out words.

skwl - school, only it wasn't a 'w' but a strange double 'oo' looped together.

It sounds truly awful! Treating small children as guinea pigs is bad enough, but then just switching to the regular alphabet with seemingly no recognition that many children would need a lot of support with that; and of course no acknowledgement from the government that the experiment had failed and caused lasting damage - it's scandalous!

Right handedness being mandatory too, was utterly senseless. An older friend was just telling me recently that her father, born in 1908, was born with 2 thumbs on his right hand Not a nub, or a flap, but a more or less fully formed second thumb. This of course made holding a pencil in his right hand all but impossible, so he naturally used his left hand. But at school he was forced to use his disfigured right hand.

I had no idea that enforced right handedness was still a thing as recently as 50-60 years ago.

I was at school in the 60s and 70s and this article is the first I have ever heard of it.

My (now deceased) mum was in an ITA class. DH told me about this article yesterday and loads of memories came back about things she's told me about her grim childhood at school. It was a Catholic school run by nuns.
She was hit with a ruler for getting things wrong. She was hit for writing with the "wrong" hand. She was hit for not doing homework which she needed help with and her parents and sisters couldn't help her as none of them understood ITA.
She couldn't read any of the story books in the house without someone reading them to her, and in those pre-Internet days they would have had to travel 20 miles from their rural town to the nearest city (without a car) to find a bookshop that had anything other than English books.
Then she was dumped in the Catholic high school with no ongoing support to transition to reading/writing English, she didn't learn to actually read and write until she was 13 and left with a single CSE in Art and went on to be the only one in the family to work in a factory (which she hated and got very depressed) instead of white collar jobs. We grew up in absolute poverty due to her lack of earning potential.
She was such an intelligent woman but was completely let down by all the adults in her life over this. I can't speak for everywhere but it was implemented really badly at this particular school for this class.

I learned to read in the usual way but we moved house in the mid sixty when I was about to start the juniors. Unfortunately my younger sister was about to start reception and that school used ITA in the infant classes.
I remember my parents being baffled by her reading books and she wasn't able to read the books we had at home that were passed down from me.
Luckily she adapted easily once put on normal style books as she progressed through school.
Thanks for the article as I've occasionally wondered over the years what the reason for it was.

We had regular books at school, but I remember one day coming across ITA books in the Library, and asking my mum what they were. She was actually pretty annoyed by them, and explained what they were supposed to be for. This would have been late 60s/early 70s.

This is awful. I'm so sorry your mum was so utterly let down.

I was an early reader and going to a school that used ita completely f*cked me up
Even my name was spelt differently, it put me back months

I was taught ITA (South Africa, early 70s) but as I was already a reader before starting school it was just a rather weird school task, a bit like learning shorthand or whatever - albeit less useful. I can remember being furious for being marked down when I accidentally wrote a word in correct English rather than ITA, but apart from that it hasn’t affected me at all. I can’t imagine why anyone thought it would be a good use of time to teach young children an imaginary alphabet which they would then have to forget or unlearn, but there you are!

I did ITA at school! (Born late 60s.) I read both the ITA books and normal ones we had at home - my Mum taught me to read before I went to school. Apparently I could switch easily between the 2 a bit like someone who us bilingual!

I was taught this way for a few years. It hasn't affected me, and I have always devoured books, so built up my vocabulary really quickly. But I do know that some of my contemporaries really struggled with spelling after moving from ITA to the regular alphabet (at approx age 7).

I don't think I learnt that way. My spelling is ok, not brilliant but I think the learning in my era late sixties at infant school was not very structured. I could read before I got to school as could many of my classmates.

Re right handedness, I don't think it was enforced but might have been encouraged. I don't instantly notice whether people are right or left handed. When I was growing up I wasn't sporty but was valued at rounders and cricket because I was very good at catching things. When I was 11 I fractured my arm and discovered I was quite ambidextrous. An early job proof reading printouts made me begin the discipline of putting my pen on the right hand side so I could keep my proof corrections on the same side/my handwriting consistent.

Never heard of it, I was at school in the late 70s and could read and write well before I started school. Was reading whole books like Famous Five at 5yo.

Mum taught me to read using the Glen Doman flashcards method so not sure how the kids in my class were taught to read.

I think the flash card method isn’t recommended anymore but it didn’t do me any harm and I also used it with Dd and my brother used it with my nephew and they’re both really bright, good readers.

@MoominUnderWater My mother was another aficionado of Glenn Doman!

I am obviously the same age as @Ifailed. My school didn’t use ita but one of the other schools in our town did and the children in the house opposite learned it. It seemed very odd to me, but I remember being told that it was supposed to make learning to read easier in the early days, because it was logical.

My school was run by a traditional strict headmistress but my left-handed sister wasn’t forced to write with her right hand (unlike my mother, who was born in the 1920s and had her left hand tied behind her back to stop her writing with it)!

I missed it thank goodness as I could read when I started school but ITA did a bit of a number on my sister who struggled with reading for years because of it.

I HAVE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!!!! I tried this out on my 12yo (Y7) DD who’s diagnosed with dyslexia and working memory problems she could read the yellow bit, the nursery rhyme and the book heading straight away with me covering the pictures (in case it gave it away)for context she’s never seen ITA in her life and really really really struggles to read write and spell! she hardly ever can read anything straight away! obviously I’m
not a teacher and I know it won’t be used now but it’s like it was invented for her 🥹

Wow, I'm the same age as the women in the article and I've never heard of this. Fascinating.

I had to learn ITA at school (mid 70s) despite being already able to read

Me and my siblings all learned to read and write using ITA. We’re all very good readers, all learned to read / write very young. We also are very good at spelling.